Category Archives: Memoirs of Eleanor Knowlton

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Anticipating attacks, Ellen arms herself and prepares to fight

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MEMOIRS OF MY GREAT-GREAT GRANDMOTHER,
ELEANOR HOWARD (THOMAS) BRITTAIN KNOWLTON
November 1834 – August 1908

Passing through Utah in a long wagon train. Ellen arms herself and vows to fight if trouble occurs. Another wagon train massacred, Ellen says the Mormons did it. They enter Nevada territory. An attack at the Humboldt River. Bullet molds and hot lead.

I knew that I had to stay, let the consequences be what they would. I climbed up into the provision wagon, put the children in it and got my old Yager rifle and a shot gun and made up my mind to fight if I had to. I stayed there until late afternoon without hearing or seeing anything. Finally I got out my field glasses and looked again and still could seen nothing. The third time, however, I saw a train of ponies and the riders were dressed like Indians or traders. There was a lot of sage brush near our camp so I got my baby in my lap and the other child on my back and walked in a bending position until I reached a thick bunch of sage, put the children under it and told the eldest one to keep her sister quiet, for I was going back to the wagon and keep whoever it turned out to be from taking our food. I also told her if I was killed or hurt for her to stay hidden until her father came and that he would be whistling. I then gave them some food and went back to the wagon.

I looked again and saw one man alone who seemed to be making his way toward my wagon. I made up my mind not to run but to die at my post.

He came nearer and nearer and finally pulled off his hat and waved it and then I saw that he was an emigrant. He came up to me and said quickly that he had seen me hide the children. He said the men on the ponies were men who had been to California and were going back to the states and that he was one of Dr. Wolf’s men and had gone ahead of the train to look for a camping place. He knew who I was so I went and got the children. When the rest of the men came up he told them and told them who I was and that I had been alone all day. The men doffed their hats and cheered me. My brother and the men found all the stock and later when Mr. Brittain and Dr. Wolf came the doctor said that he did not believe there was another woman crossing the plains that would have stayed as I did all alone, with my two children. Of course I might not have done it either but that I knew it was my own stubbornness that had caused it.

We joined Wolf’s train and the first day of our journey onward we came to Holoway’s grave where he, his child and five men were buried in a square hole in the middle of the road. His wife’s long red hair was scattered all around. She had crawled away after the Indians had left her for dead and a train came along and picked her up and took her to southern California. We had not traveled but a few days when we heard of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which was Captain Turner’s train, which we had just left. I greatly mourned their untimely and dreadful end but was glad that I had followed my inner guide who had prompted me to leave them.

I had a cousin, a MR. WELCH and his wife and daughter from Kentucky in that train. The train was made up from different states and I will say from the best people. Welch and his family and Captain Turner escaped as they were ahead of the train in search of grass. The Captain was shot through his knee. I will tell you more of this massacre later but will say now it was the Mormons who did it.

Now we are un Utah territory, traveling slowly as all long trains must do. I still walked when my children were sleeping and one day when the scenery seemed nicer than usual I started out. I did not ask the driver to stop for me to get off the wagon but stepped down on the tongue. My feet slipped and I fell in front of the wheels and they passed over my arms. I screamed and the team which was behind stopped immediately. The driver picked me up and laid me in the wagon. I was in great misery. Dr. Wolf and my husband were ahead on the lookout for grass and they were sent for to come back but thinking it was a joke about my accident and as it was near camping time they played cards until we drove up to the place where they had decided to camp. I was always one of the first to get out but this time I could move neither arm and when my husband did not see me he came to the wagon and asked what was the matter with me. I would not answer him so he went for Dr. Wolf who said, “Is it so that your arms are broken?” I said, “Yes, and this is a nice time for you and Mr. Brittain to come and ask me about it.” He got me out of the wagon and examined my arms which were not broken but so badly bruised that I could not use them for several days. Both of them begged my pardon.

We are now in Nevada territory and have traveled for several days without any trouble. We tried the men who had attempted to steal our stock and kept them with us as they gave bonds for good behavior, and did behave well after that time. The rest of the men were not allowed to mention the matter to them. HORACE CHALMERS was the man who tried to escape and he had given me his clothes to keep. When he took them from the wagon he had taken a bundle of the children’s clothes instead and he felt very ashamed. I knew that some of our men were in constant fear of the Indians so when Chalmers asked me to go his security I was sorry for him and did so. We expected to have trouble any time.

We were on the Humboldt River a few days after that and were getting ready to make an early start. The willows were very thick on the river and the men had driven all the loose stock up and the oxen were hitched. All at once an ox fell dead with an arrow in it and an Indian was seen to jump in the river. Dr. Wolf called for the men to get ready for a fight and the women began screaming for the men not to go. Dr. Wolf asked me if I was going to let Mr. Brittain go and I said, “Yes, if he does not need not to come back to my wagon.”

We were having quite a lively time and soon some called out for ammunition so I got out of the wagon with my tin ladle bullet molds and lead. You would have laughed to see me making bullets. They were not very nice but would have served to bring down and Indian or two, if there had been any. Well, the battle was over without the loss of any of our men. They put poison in the ox that was shot which I thought was very inhuman for they knew the Indians were starving. It was the emigrants doing such things which caused the Indians to commit more and more crimes, I am sure.

Footnote: The Mountain Meadows massacre occurred on Friday, September 11, 1857 in Mountain Meadows, Utah, several miles south of Enterprise in Washington County along the portion of the Old Spanish Trail that became the overland wagon road to California. Mormon militia and some Paiutes killed an entire wagon train of Arkansas farming families known as the Baker/Fancher party, traveling from Arkansas to California. Around 120 unarmed men, women and children were killed. Seventeen younger children (none older than six) were spared. Source: wikipedia.org.

Crossing the Plains from Missouri to Nevada in 1857, May 21, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: On to Missouri, May 25, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Setting Out, May 27, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Nebraska to Wyoming, June 5, 2024

“Gublet’s cutoff, quicksand, and gravesites, June 15, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Reaching the Rockies, June 20, 2024

Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Reaching the Rockies

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Eleanor Knowlton’s Memoirs: Nebraska to Wyoming

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MEMOIRS OF ELEANOR HOWARD (THOMAS) BRITTAIN KNOWLTON
November 1834 – August 1908

First Indians seemed “peaceable enough. Lead oxen bolts, wagon starts to sink in the Platt River. Saved by “five Yankee boys.” Mr. Brittain goes in search of cattle taken by Indians. Ellen is assisted by a fellow Mason. Grass for cows is scarce.

Crossing the Platt River

You will be surprised when I tell you that when we got there, there were hundreds of emigrants waiting there to cross their loose cattle and wagons over the river and so mine were the last to cross. Our men had to herd our cattle and I was left alone quite awhile with my two little girls. There were a great many Indians who seemed peaceable enough but I felt a little nervous as I had not been used to seeing so many. However I struck up a little barter with them. I gave them all the surplus clothes and when my husband and the men came to cross our train over I had quite a supply of beads and moccasins. I knew better than to give our food away. They hardly gave me time to gather up my Indian goods and get into the wagon before they started crossing. Our oxen became unruly and a key lost out of the yoke. The lead oxen turn round and got off the channel and the wagon I was in began to sink, while the driver was getting the other oxen yoked. He handed me the yoke and my husband pled with him not to let me and the children drown. Mr. Brittain had ridden in as soon as he could to help get the wagon up. It was lying on its side. His horse got into quicksand and it fell on him and he was hurt. In the meantime I had tied both of my children hard and fast to me and took the iron rod out of the shot gun and started to whip the wheel oxen to make them pull, but the driver could not move them.

We had five Yankee boys in the train and they came running to our assistance. They waded into the water and quicksand up to their arm pits and threw ropes over the wagon and pulled it up on the wheels. The driver then drove out. Our clothes and some keepsakes were spoiled but I did not care as I expected to throw them away before we reached California. You should have heard the emigrants shouting when the children and I got on dry ground and except for those Yankee boys we wouldn’t have gotten there. My husband had eight gallons of old rye whiskey when we had brought along in case of sickness. He called to the Yankees and told them to help themselves and then the emigrants to all come and have a taste. I say a taste for eight gallons did not go far with all that crowd. Being a southerner I never had much love for Yankees, feeling that they were our enemies but that day I can tell you that I did away with my prejudice and I have liked them ever since. Those boys had started from Connecticut, got out on the plains between Kansas and Nebraska and were robbed of their provisions. That is how we happened to let them join our train and they certainly proved their appreciation. That night we had a terrific storm. The rain just poured down and the thunder and lightening was fearful. Our tent blew over and those boys were the first to help fix it. I have been in many storms in Tennessee, but that was the hardest storm I had ever experienced. Our hired men were all from Missouri and could not milk, so I had been doing the milking. The cows were so wild that they had to be tied hard and fast so that I could manage it. Some were so wild that we had to kill the little calves and let the milk dry up. We always had plenty to use and often the can which we put it in would have quite a lump of butter in it, churned by the jolting of the wagon. Well, after those Connecticut boys joined our train I no longer had to the milking for they did it all.

Cattle go missing

We traveled up the Platt River until we came to Fort Kerney (sic). Camped there and had several of our cattle stolen or run off by the Indians. When we started the next morning Mr. Brittain and one of the hired men went back and hiding the best that they could hoping that they might see the cattle being brought to the fort if they had been stolen. They never saw the cattle. When he left my husband told me he would join us some time that night and for us not to go far from the road side as it was very dark and he might pass us by. When Mr. Brittain did not come that night there was one of our party got scared and said he would not wait for him. I told him I would not go any farther than three miles we had to go for grass. We had one or two belled cows and we thought they could hear the bells. We had to drive further than we had expected to as the grass was scarce and the cattle were tired.

My husband had not come by nine o’clock the next morning. He had not only passed us but several other trains and they told him we had not passed them so he turned back again. The man who said he would not wait for him got ready to leave us. He had his wife and two children a little boy and a young daughter. He had eight head of milk cows with a man to drive them and a two horse wagon. We were camped on Sweetwater, I think as we had passed Fort Laramie and are now in Wyoming. This man crossed his cows over and came back to get his wagon. He was in such a hurry to get away that he did not notice his little boy under the wagon, drove over him, and broke one of his arms. He wife said it was a judgement on him for leaving me in distress. They had no medicines or bandages so as I had both I did what I could for the child. Then Mr. Dunn wanted to stay with us but I told him he should never come into our train again. I never heard of them after that. My brother said they were ahead of us as he had seen Sarah’s footsteps. She always went barefoot.

After they had gone we could not move until we got some help, unless I could drive. I had never driven oxen and again said I would not move until my husband came unless some other train comes. Finally I saw a drove of sheep coming. All of the men excepting my brother were with the cattle. I told him to look after my children and I would go over and ask the herders if they had seen two men on horseback. The man said they had passed their train that night. I saw a man on horseback quite a distance away too far to speak to him, so I gave him a sign which brought him to me immediately. He said sheep and cattle do not mix but that he would cross the sheep over the river and then stay with me until my husband came.

We had a talk and found out my father had assisted him in buying his sheep. Mr. Murray From Green Co., Missouri and my father were both Masons and as soon as he answered my sign I felt easy again. I had the daughter degree in Masonry. Father had told him I was on the plains going to California and to be on the lookout for me. My husband got back all right and we got started again that evening. We bade Mr. Murray good bye, not expecting to see him again as we could travel faster than he could.

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